“CARTE DE LA BAYE DE CHESAPEACK...” Jean Nicholas Bellin (hydrographer to Louis XV), Paris: from Histoire Generale des Voyages by A. F. Prevost de Exiles, c. 1757 – first state, first edition identifiable by the pointing hand beneath title cartouche. Beautifully engraved map in excellent condition with later hand-coloring. (Image: 7 ½ x 11 3/8’’)
This map depicts the region from Philadelphia to Norfolk, Virginia. It details not only the settlements along the Eastern Shore, but also inland settlements & plantations along the James & other rivers, as well as a very detailed view of the entire Chesapeake Bay area.
The cartouche reference that this is derived from the “best English maps” (Tiree des meilleures Cartes Angloises) is to the Fry-Jefferson map of 1753. Bellin’s inclusion of “Moulin Hoggats” (Hoggett's Mill – found near the “I” in “Virginia”) debuted on the Fry-Jefferson map & did not reappear again until this map.
The new town of “Belhaven or Alexandrie” is noted. This site was settled in 1695, and a community known as Belhaven was founded 1731. It was organized in 1749 & renamed for John Alexander, who had originally been granted the land.
The Lord Fairfax Boundary Line is found delineated in the “Northern Neck of Virginia” & represents “the extreme claims of Lord Fairfax in his famous land dispute with the Crown…This tract was acquired in 1688 by Thomas Lord Culpepper, whose grandson, Thomas Fairfax, lost his title to it in the Revolutionary War” (Fite & Freeman, A Book of Old Maps Delineating American History, p. 244).
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